Only One Black Emmy Winner This Year; But Archie Panjabi Won

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I didn’t watch The Emmys this year. Frankly, I had a hard time adjusting the rabbit ears and gave up, and the floor TV in the common room had already been commandeered. I watched the Bond movie for a while (Daniel Craig seems much closer to the character than Connery ever was–minus all the gratuitous explosions and physical hacking), and then switched over to Inspector Lewis, which was really, really good last night. I heard, though, that some of the presenters, like Ricky Gervais, were hilariously on point.

You could say actor Andre Braugher “showed” to win for his performance in Men of a Certain Age,. He was beat out in this horse race by Breaking Bad‘s Aaron Paul for the Best Supporting Actor Emmy. Paul played a student who teams up with his former teacher to become meth dealers. Now Braugher has already won two Emmys, but the only black winner this year was Isaiah Mustafa for his popular Old Spice commercials. So what is up with that? Not even Wanda Sykes won.

[…] According to information from the New York Daily News, this isn’t all that odd. […] “Since 1986, non-white actors have received only 53 nominations out of nearly 1000 in the top four acting categories for drama and comedy. Only eight have ever won.”

Whereas these days, in contrast, I’ve noted awards’ shows like The Tonys and even The Oscars seem a bit more inclusive, but the final decision is usually with the studios and how they cast. In a period-piece TV series like Mad Men, it’s bound to be all white at the top because it is about the 1960s and Madison Avenue. As the cameras move towards present-day, this kind of homogeneity becomes less and less supportable.

Sometimes it takes someone casting a Latino or a black where a white person was “expected,” rather than casting for the black woman or the Asian man in a dramedy like Glee or House. It only takes one opportunity for someone to shine.

One person of color who did win was British actress Archie Panjabi, who plays Kalinda Sharma on CBS’ The Good Wife.

London-born Panjabi picked up the outstanding supporting actress award for her role in The Good Wife as the US honoured stars of the small screen at a lavish Los Angeles ceremony.

The 38-year-old, who made her name in British hit films East is East and Bend It Like Beckham, won the Emmy for her role as a law firm’s in-house private investigator in the hit TV show. She beat fellow The Good Wife actor Christine Baranski and Mad Men‘s Elisabeth Moss.

Panjabi was born in West London of Sikh parents. Her full name is Archana Kaur Panjabi.

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Let me add, Ms. Panjabi, that ethnicity or sexuality doesn’t become a question until it is normalized; that is, that the true colors of Ameicans or Britons is made normative, usual, everyday. As it should be. Some of this “no Muslims in my backyard” BS is actually about how these opponents are losing their minds about the changing meaning of who really is an American, and how that whites are rapidly becoming a minority in their own country. It doesn’t matter if you are Muslim, Latino, or black.

These days, people still sit up and take notice whenever something different walks across the screen in a role that some hadn’t imagined. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but I think we still haven’t gone past those days when the appearance of a black or a person of color on certain TV shows made people pick up the phone and call neighbors and relatives.

Sad to say, among Latinos, Hector Ramirez has set a record for the most Emmy nominations for camera operator. (Sofia Vergara–I think I oughta check out her film career in Columbia before I say anything one way or another. I’m already not impressed with her.) So whatever happened to the successors to Jimmy Smits and Hector Elizondo? This is so through.

[…C]amera operator Hector Ramirez who became the most Emmy nominated individual with 60 noms after scoring 5 more today: for his work on the Oscars, the Grammys, the Kennedy Center Honors, the 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Dancing with the Stars. His first Emmy nomination came in 1978. SNL started its Emmy run two years earlier, landing five noms for its maiden season and winning 4, including best comedy-variety or music series, best writing and directing for such series and best supporting actor (Chevy Chase).

Supporting Actor in a Comedy
• Jesse Tyler, Modern Family
• Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
• Chris Colfer, Glee
• Ty Burrell, Modern Family
• Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family (WINNER)
• Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men

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